


Harder To Breathe

by Kaijuscientists



Series: Fictober 2019 [8]
Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Drowning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Blood, Whump, Whumptober 2019, like just mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-26
Updated: 2019-10-26
Packaged: 2021-01-03 09:21:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21177080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kaijuscientists/pseuds/Kaijuscientists
Summary: Heaven has cut Aziraphale's use of miracles off till the end of the month, and unfortunately the local men who want him to sell his bookshop have finally had enough.





	Harder To Breathe

**Author's Note:**

> whumptober entry for waterlogged and unconscious.

Aziraphale wakes up cold, wet, and with a mighty headache. He opens his eyes, surprised to find water all around him, lapping around his shoulders. He’s hugging a wooden pole it seems, and when he flexes his arms, finds that he’s bound to it, whatever is holding him is wrapped all around his body. 

Craning his neck to look up, he thinks he might be under a pier, he must be in the Thames. 

“Hello?!” He yells, hoping someone might be up there who can help. “Is there anyone there?!”

He waits and waits but the only thing he can hear is water all around him. He can’t even hear any traffic. 

He feels several things, in quick succession. Annoyance, then anger, followed closely by panic. 

Panic because he had no way of getting himself out of this. No way of contacting anyone. And no one around to help him either. 

Under normal circumstances, he could miracle himself free with a snap of his fingers. 

Under normal circumstances, he wouldn’t be in this unfortunate situation in the first place. 

Heaven had cut him off almost completely from his powers for a month, saying he’d spent to many on mundane and frivolous things. He’d only be able to perform miracles pre-approved by head office. 

He was well and truly screwed, he believed the turn of phrase was.

Struggling against his bindings, he tries to force them, break them, but without access to his essense, he can’t even use any celestial strength to his advantage. He reaches, grasps for it, can feel it just past his fingertips. But heavens own metaphysical bindings don’t budge. 

The water had been just at his shoulder, was now up to his neck, and rising quickly.

\--------------------------

In soho, the demon Crowley is dropping by the bookshop to surprise his angel with a nice vintage and hopes to whisk him away for dinner. 

Expecting to find Aziraphale nose deep in a book, he was surprised to find instead a shop in disarray, books knocked to the ground and blood on the floor. The signs of a struggle were obvious. A flick of his tongue in the air and knew that the blood belonged to Aziraphale, 

“Aziraphale?” He calls, panic washing into his voice. “Are you here?”

He looks through the shop, through the shelves, the back room. Even upstairs in the flat. But there is no angel to be found. 

Someone had hurt his angel and he wasn’t in the shop, and that has every nerve in Crowley’s body on edge. 

—-------------------

Desperately trying to keep his mouth and nose above water, Aziraphale has his head tipped back as far as humanly possible. 

Strictly speaking, he didn’t need to breathe. But he had been breathing for millennia, would even say he liked it. There was great relief tied to heaving a great sigh, or yawning during a good stretch.

So he liked it, and as such it was a hard habit to just hard stop. 

“Please,” Aziraphale calls, desperate and garbled as waves wash into his mouth past chattering teeth. “Please anyone!”

He could go under, resign himself to that existence for a while. If he didn’t breathe he’d be fine until someone found him, or until the water level went back down with the tide. 

Even if he told his corporation to stop breathing, it was an unfortunate reflex of the human body to panic when you couldn’t. And whether or not his lungs needed oxygen, taking in a lungful of water would have a very negative effect on his body. 

He’d drown, which was a rather terrible way to discorporate, he’s heard. When he made it back upstairs he’d get a severe scolding, because if he’d been better with his miracles, they wouldn’t have had to punish him, and he wouldn’t have discorporated in the first place. 

He’d be lucky to get issued a new corporation with any expedience. And Crowley would have no idea what had happened to him. He’d just disappear until he could negotiate a new corporation. 

He had never wished harder that Crowley would show up to save him once again. As the water finally covers his mouth. He sucks in one last breath through his nose before he completely under. 

One last time, he reaches out with everything he has, trying to invoke something, anything, just for a moment. His powers continue to lie just beyond his grasp.

He fights against his bindings desperately, pushing against them with all his might. But he’s cold, shivering, and that has sapped what little strength he had left.

The urge to take a breath is overwhelming as pressure in his chest builds, lungs screaming for air. He shakes his head, willing himself to calm, the feeling will pass and he’ll be fine. He presses his forehead against pole, repeating the mantra _ don’t breathe, don’t breathe _ over and over in his head. 

But his hazy brain, suddenly deprived of oxygen it has grown so used too, is screaming at him to breath, so his traitorous body does, sucking in a lung full of water, spasming against his bindings as his lungs burn.

—-----------------------

Crowley has never had a problem keeping track of Aziraphale throughout their history on earth. When he allows his aura to reach out, he feels a faint spark of angelic energy, and hones in on it, popping into existence on a pier on the Thames. 

Looking left and right, he sees no angel, in fact, he doesn’t see anyone at all. There is barely any light at all, had his eyes not been made to see in the dark, he wouldn’t be able to see a thing.

“Aziraphale?” He calls out, he can sense Aziraphale, he’s definitely in the right spot. He can feel the angels distress like a beacon now that he’s closer. 

He walks, definitely doesn’t run, to the end of the pier and looks over at the water. Thanking someone that he can see so well in the dark, because if he couldn’t, he would have missed the tuft of blonde hair just below the murky, dark surface of the water. 

“Oh, fuck” 

Crowley all but throws himself over the railing, diving into the water with no hesitation. The water is absolutely frigid, shocking him still for just a moment. But he gathers his wits quickly, finding his angel tied to the bottom of the pier.

_”What in heaven…” _ he thinks. Aziraphale is unconscious, limp and lifeless, and looking more than a little blue. That can’t be a good sign at all. 

Planting his hands on Aziraphale’s shoulders, he concentrates and teleports them back to his flat, the book shop to dangerous right now. 

They’re deposited in the middle of Crowley’s flat, dry and safe. Aziraphale is still very cold, his lips a very concerning shade of blue. 

Pressing a palm to Aziraphale’s chest, he’s unsurprised to find he’s not breathing at all.

“You can start breathing anytime, angel.” Crowley says shakily, dropping his head and resting an ear on the angel’s chest, relieved to hear a sluggish heart beat. 

He rolls Aziraphale on to his side, supporting him with an arm across his chest, using his other arm to thump him hard on the back. 

“Come on,” Crowley growls. “Don’t you dare discorporate on me, you bloody angel.”

A swell of water gushes from Aziraphale’s mouth before he inhales a harsh ragged breath, followed by rough and painful coughing. Crowley pulls him up, still supporting him as he coughs up water, every breath catching in his chest as his lungs try to hack up the remaining water. 

It takes several minutes before he can finally get a full breath of air, chest heaving with it, leaning heavily on Crowley. 

He’s shaking now too, be it from the exertion of coughing up half the River Thames or because he still frozen from being in the water for who knows how long, Crowley thinks it’s safe to assume it’s a combination of both. 

He’s weakly hugging Crowley’s arm to his Chest now, heaving breath after shaky breath, the demon a pillar of warmth next to him. 

“There you are,” Crowley says softly, letting out his own breath when the blue started to recede from the angels lips. He rubs his back, wanting to offer some comfort. “That’s it, just breathe.”

“What happened angel?” Crowley asks after some time passed, Aziraphale appearing more cognizant. 

“You remember those men who kept trying to get me to sell the shop?” Aziraphale asks, voice sounding as if he’d been gargling gravel. “I think I might have angered them, as they sent someone to threaten me, and when I would not concede, well, you saw what they did.”

“I did,” Crowley says softly. “Saw what they did to the shop too. How’d they get the jump on you?” 

“Heaven cut me off.” Aziraphale grumbles. 

“C-cut you off?” Crowley says surprised, he’d known Hell to cut off demon’s from their power as punishment, but for Heaven to do it to an angel? He’d never heard of such a thing. “They do that?”

“It appears there are first times for everything.” he says sadly, a rough shiver running through him. 

“Assholes, the whole lot of them.” Crowley says, tightening his hold on Aziraphale, who was still shivering against him. “Why don’t we get you warmed up?”

“Oh, that would be very nice,” A very undignified sound escaping him when Crowley picks him up without warning, cradling him close to his chest. 

Aziraphale is set on Crowley’s plush bed, and with a wave of the demon’s hand they’re both changed into warm pajamas. Crowley climbs into the bed pulling the thick comforter over them and pulling the angel to rest flush against his chest. With a soft whoosh, his wings unfurl and settle around the pair, creating a comforting cocoon of warmth as Aziraphale clings to his demon, soaking up his warmth.


End file.
